1. Field of the Invention.
The present invention is directed to a system and method for establishing a plurality of parallel laser generated beams and laser generated planes perpendicular to at least one established reference plane.
2. Description of the Prior Art.
Aircraft manufacturers rely on three principal coordinate planes to design and assemble an aircraft. These coordinate planes are a waterline plane, which is substantially parallel to the floor and wings of the aircraft, a buttock plane, which is coincident with the longitudinal axis of the aircraft fuselage and perpendicular to the waterline plane, and a station plane, which is perpendicular to the two afore-mentioned planes. All dimensions for locating parts inside or outside the aircraft are measured from these three planes. Station plane 0 is the nose of the aircraft. Waterline and buttock dimensions are measured left or right of the master buttock plane of the aircraft and above or below the master waterline plane of the aircraft, respectively.
Many prior art instruments have been used to provide reference lines on the three principal aircraft planes at known offsets for the purpose of setting details. Details, such as seat tracks, stow bin hangers, door locations, etc., have specified locations defined by the three principal planes. Many types of instruments for locating the position of such details relative to the three planes are in the prior art, including, an optical tooling telescope, theodolites, auto collimator, and single-plane laser scanners which use a scanning laser device to generate a flat plane. Various manual and automatic methods of bucking the single flat plane into reference targets inside or outside the aircraft frame are included in the prior art. In some prior art embodiments, the laser plane is used horizontally as a waterline plane and another laser instrument is turned 90.degree. to create a vertical buttock or station plane. These embodiments, however, employ two completely different laser plane generators, with each plane requiring three reference targets to allow the bucking of the laser plane to the aircraft coordinate plane system. Furthermore, both laser plane generators must be bucked into the aircraft coordinate plane system for each location along the fuselage of the aircraft. A considerable amount of time is required to locate the targets for the vertical laser plane generator and to properly align the vertical scan plane with the targets at each desired location, in addition to aligning the horizontal plane generator with the horizontal targets. Thus, there is a need to simply and quickly establish a plurality of vertical planes perpendicular to a horizontal reference plane.
The assignee of the subject invention also is the owner of U.S. Pat. No. 5,307,368 which is directed to an apparatus that can generate three mutually perpendicular laser beam. Additionally, the apparatus include as many as three rotating beam diverters aligned respectively with the three mutually perpendicular laser beams. Each beam diverter disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,307,368 is operative to deflect the incoming laser beam through precisely 90.degree.. Thus, rotation of any such beam diverter about an axis coincident with the incoming laser beam will cause the diverted laser beam to sweep a flat optical plane perpendicular to the incoming laser beam. Thus use of three such rotating beam diverters enable the apparatus to sweep three mutually perpendicular planes.
In manufacturing, there are many applications where the parallelism of several reference lines, bores, axes of rotation, etc. must be measured. For example, the parallelism of central bores of gears in a large gear case is crucial for optimal performance and longevity.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a system and method of generating simultaneously or sequentially a plurality of parallel laser beams perpendicular to a single reference plane which enable the parallel alignment of reference lines, bores and axes of rotation.
It is also an object of the subject invention to provide a system and method of generating a reference plane from which a plurality of perpendicular laser scan planes may be easily generated simultaneously or sequentially.
A further object of the subject invention is to provide a system and method for generating two mutually perpendicular reference planes with the ability to easily simultaneously or sequentially generate a plurality of laser scan planes which are mutually perpendicular to the two reference planes.
It is yet another object of the subject invention to provide a system and method for generating a reference plane and a plurality of perpendicular laser beams or laser scan planes relative to the reference plane, with coordinate measuring devices provided to determine the horizontal and vertical positioning of the generated laser beams and planes within the reference plane.